But for him and the team of about 30 extra ambulance officers rostered on in the city for the night, there was little cheer to be had.

At 11.30pm, as a herd of up to 400,000 revellers crammed the city streets for the fireworks display, reports of crowd-crush injuries and multiple faintings came over the airwaves.

Three emergencies were reported on the packed Princess Bridge - a person with chest pains, one who had collapsed and an assault victim. But reaching them was almost impossible.

For one paramedic, negotiating the crowd was made more difficult when several revellers climbed onto her car.

But Mr Holman said such hindrances occurred during every New Year's Eve celebration in the city. "This is always going to happen when you've got such a large volume of people in such a concentrated area," he said.

At 12.04am word came through of a 24-year-old man near Bacchus Marsh who had suffered a serious eye injury after tinkering with illegal fireworks.

As reports of drink-spiking, drunkenness, brawls and drug overdoses mounted, one ambulance crew was put out of action temporarily after a party-goer tried to break into their vehicle at 1.05am. The crew checked to ensure nothing had been stolen and police arrested the alleged culprit, who was among 260 taken into custody in the city during the night.

In Dandenong, paramedics treated a man who had been stabbed during a domestic dispute. In St Kilda, a man suffered serious injuries when his arm smashed a window.

Elsewhere, there were reports of pedestrians being struck by cars. In one incident, a policeman was lucky to have escaped unhurt when he was struck by colleagues in a divisional van as they pursued suspected car thieves.

Between midnight and 2.45am, paramedics received an emergency call every 40 seconds. Their NSW counterparts received calls for help every 30 seconds.

By 6am, crews had attended more than 300 incidents - most of which were alcohol related - across metropolitan Melbourne.

They watched the sun rise, then headed home to celebrate the dawn of 2004.